


Fennel

by pantherophis



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: M/M, Medical Procedures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 05:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1845397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pantherophis/pseuds/pantherophis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Catgut suture is a type of surgical suture that is naturally degraded by the body's own proteolytic enzymes."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fennel

**Author's Note:**

> [ _Foeniculum vulgare_ : "worthy all praise"]
> 
> dedicated to my friend Andy, who hassled me into writing this

“Rowen can fix your coat later, Alvin, come on. I need you to take it off.”

“Easy for you to say when you can move your arm,” Alvin mutters, shrugging it off his good shoulder. Blood has drenched almost half of his sleeve already.

Jude’s face immediately softens. “I’m sorry... Here, let me – ” He reaches for Alvin’s other sleeve and helps remove it as gingerly as he can. Alvin tries not to grimace as the fibres scrape past his open wound. 

When Jude sets the coat aside, Alvin cautiously glances down at his arm. The blood is thicker on his undershirt, completely soaking the white fabric, and matted flat against his skin.

“Man, the coat was salvageable, but that one isn’t gonna wash out. Guess no one’s getting that hand-me-down when I bite the dust.”

Jude’s eyes flash with horror. “Alvin, don’t talk like that. You’re not going to die!”

The pain in his arm is throbbing - has been since the monster snapped his jaws around him and sunk its teeth in - but hassling Jude is taking his mind off it. “It’s okay, doc,” he says hoarsely, with a fake cough. “You can give it to me straight.”

Jude whips up to make stern eye contact with him. He knows Alvin is just messing around but he needs to say his piece anyway. “Fine. The ‘straight’ is that I’m going to assess your wound, apply medication if necessary, and stitch it back up. This will take half an hour at the most. You will survive.”

Alvin hears the wavering note in Jude’s voice and realizes maybe he shouldn’t make his medical practitioner burst into stressed tears. “I know, kid, don’t worry.” He unbuttons his undershirt and lets it slip off his shoulder on the side Jude needs access to. “There. Do your thing.”

With a sigh, Jude pulls a medical kit out of his bag and pops it open. Alvin looks over curiously. All the steel instruments – whatever they are, Alvin can’t even imagine what purpose half of them serve – are organized by size, with bottles of liquid, syringes, and a pair of gloves off to the side. He’s impressed. He had taken it for granted until now that Jude was actually a qualified doctor.

Eyebrows furrowed in concentration, Jude trains his gaze on the tattered gash in Alvin’s upper arm. He slips on his gloves and looks closer at the wound. “Um.”

Alvin’s heart drops slightly. “What?”

“Sorry, nothing,” Jude says, distracted. He fusses in his medical kit and Alvin’s heart drops further when he sees the glinting steel in Jude’s hand.

“What the hell is that for?”

“Sorry, it’s a scalpel,” Jude says, then mumbles something about keeping calm and not panicking your patient as he carefully pours what Alvin scents as alcohol over the blade. 

“That’s not what I asked,” Alvin says dryly.

Jude’s tongue pokes out in concentration as he takes Alvin’s torn bicep in one hand and readies the scalpel in the other. “I see something wedged inside your muscle. When the monster attacked you, I think its fang broke off in your skin. I’m going to try and take it out.”

“Great,” Alvin groans.

Jude shuffles closer on his knees, focused on getting a clear view. He raises the scalpel to Alvin’s skin before pausing. He looks up at Alvin with a face riddled with guilt.

“What?” Alvin asks.

“You might want to bite down on something,” Jude says sympathetically.

Alvin’s eyebrows knot together as he exhales through his nose, bringing his other arm up to his mouth.

“Sorry… try not to move, okay?”

“Just do it,” Alvin mutters through a mouthful of his own skin.

With a grim nod, Jude carefully inserts the scalpel into the mouth of the wound. He tilts his head to determine where exactly the foreign object is and the angle of penetration. An off-white chunk in a sea of blood and muscle catches his attention and he gently pushes the surrounding tissue away with the blunt edge of his scalpel. Alvin’s whole body tightens and the shard disappears. Jude frowns.

“Alvin,” he says gently, “please try not to tense up. It makes it hard to see the tooth shard and I’m afraid I’m going to cut you by accident.”

The sweat starts to bead on Alvin’s forehead and his eyebrows furrow harder. His whole fucking arm hurts but he knows he has to bear it. If anything, he doesn’t want to make Jude panic. He knows how sensitive the kid is. He tries to relax.

“Thank you.” Jude smiles at him. “You’re a very good patient.”

Alvin manages a strained laugh. “I have a good doctor.”

He catches the blush of embarrassment on Jude’s face as he reaches for another tool in his kit. This time he pulls out a simple pair of tweezers. He goes back to his task, pushing the meat of Alvin’s muscle aside until he gets a good visual on the gleaming tooth wedged inside. With the tweezers he gingerly reaches inside and tries to grasp the edges but it’s too slippery – too bloody – to get a decent grip. Jude frowns again, trying to click the tweezers around it again but it escapes him, slipping deeper inside Alvin’s tissue.

Jude makes a disgruntled noise inside his mouth but doesn’t say anything. He reaches down, hands shaking slightly, to pick up the latex gloves.

“What’s wrong?” Alvin asks warily.

Jude snaps on the gloves and a facemask and Alvin’s heart drops to his stomach.

“Man, I really wish you’d told me I was going to die after all. I could have written my will. ”

“Alvin,” is all Jude can manage to grunt sternly before he puts the scalpel away and then leans closely into Alvin’s wound. Both of them are drenched in a cold sweat – Jude from stress and concentration, and Alvin from anxiety and pain. Jude is too focused on what he’s doing to coddle Alvin anymore, and simply says, “I’m going inside.”

“What?” Alvin barks.

“Don't watch me. Concentrate on something else.” Jude’s voice comes out somewhat coldly, but not from indifference. The guilt of possibly making Alvin's condition worse makes him sick with worry.

Jude plunges inside Alvin’s wound, fingering the muscles aside easily now. Alvin goes rigid, gritting his teeth and hissing. Sweat rolls down his temples. His heart beats a mile a minute, and Jude can hear it thundering in Alvin's chest.

“Remember that time, way back in Hamil, where you did that fake echo?” Jude says suddenly.

“What?” Alvin says, still clenching his jaw. “Oh. Yeah, I remember that.”

“You were such an ass,” Jude says, obviously amused. As he speaks he pushes Alvin’s tissue aside enough to see the white edge of the tooth again. 

“Oh, come on, that was funny. And endearing.”

“It was only mildly both of those things.” He manoeuvres the tweezer blades between the spread muscles and encloses them on the mid-section of the tooth. “Or the time you guys made fun of me for not knowing what bazongas were.”

Alvin lets out a barking laugh. “Now _that_ was funny. I thought the old man was going to keel over laughing.” 

Jude internally lets out a sigh of relief when he gets a solid grip on the tooth this time. He begins slowly pulling it out.

“There was that time you didn’t deny swinging both ways – “

“Done.” Jude holds up the tweezers, broken monster tooth in its grip. 

Alvin pauses as he registers what Jude had pulled off. He narrows his eyes mischievously. “You sly little bastard.”

Jude smiles as he places the tooth in what appears to be an empty pill container and lets the face mask hang around his neck. “You’re not out of the woods yet,” he says. “I still have to stitch you back up.”

“Doc, you’re killing me here,” Alvin complains, though obviously relieved.

Jude wrangles a small container that looks like floss out of the box. “I couldn’t find all the proper equipment when I made this medical kit,” he mumbles, mostly to himself. He picks up a straight needle and threads it with the string. Alvin hasn’t noticed until now that Jude’s gloves are splattered with his blood. “Are you ready? This is going to be uncomfortable.”

Alvin thrusts out his arm out theatrically. “Ready when you are.”

With the needle in one hand and Alvin’s arm in the other, Jude starts the stitch at the lowest part of the wound. He works his way up as fast as he can while still being careful. He feels Alvin’s body stiffen with tiny jolts every time the needle pierces his skin. “I know this part isn’t fun,” Jude says reassuringly. 

Alvin manages a tight grin. “I’ll admit, watching you dig around under my skin was cool.”

Jude finishes up the stitches with a tiny knot. When the wound is finally closed, he sighs and starts applying alcohol to a square gauze pad. “There,” he says as he wipes away the brown-red blood smears around the stitches. “Good as new.”

Alvin takes a good look at Jude’s handiwork. The stitching is nicer than he expected, considering he was working with flesh. The skin around the stitches looks tight from being pulled together and its still purple with beads of blood where the flesh meets, but it’s clean and professional. Alvin is impressed.

“I have to give you two injections,” Jude says. He picks up a bottle and flips it upside down before inserting a needle tip inside and extracting the liquid. Alvin notices how his draw slows at a certain marker on the syringe, how he furrows his eyebrows in concentration as he pushes a bit of the liquid back inside until his measurement is perfect. He repeats the action with a different bottle of liquid and a new syringe. 

Jude takes another alcohol gauze pad and wipes down the meat of Alvin’s shoulder before injecting one of the needles. “This one is pain medication - ” he does the second one as well, “And this other one is an antibiotic, so you won’t get an infection.”

After a quick gauze wrap around Alvin’s arm, Jude sighs and finally sits back. “There. That should do it. I’m also prescribing you a couple days of rest and no fighting. You probably hate me now, but you’re good to go.”

“Hate you?” Alvin half-laughs. “For the smartest kid I know, you really are an idiot sometimes.”

“Huh?”

“You did a great job, kid,” he says. “Be proud of yourself.”

Jude flushes with embarrassment. “But – I made so many mistakes. I almost lost the tooth inside you and I caused you so much discomfort and I don’t know if I administered the correct doses of medication – “

Alvin reaches down and kisses Jude’s head. 

“ _I’m_ proud of you,” Alvin says into his hair. “Thanks, Jude.”

Jude’s heart swells until it feels like bursting and suddenly none of his errors matter – for the first time in his medical career, he lets himself beam with pride.


End file.
